Wisconsin lawmakers voted Thursday to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from the state’s public workers in one of the strongest blows to the power of unions in years.

The state’s Assembly passed Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s explosive proposal 53-42 Thursday. The state’s Senate approved it the night before after using a procedural move to bypass its AWOL Democrats.

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Whose fault is this? If your awol democrat, aka FLEEBAGGERS, would have showed up, this would not have passed. Now, you cannot blame us normal conservaqtive people for this. Not this time. Maybe this will be a little history lesson for any other fleebaggers that want to run and hide like cowards when facing a tough vote. Makes me wonder how they got elected in the first place.

The Dems left to prevent a quorum. They left to block the vote. They left behind their families and their homes for three weeks in service to the people the represent. That is not cowardice, that is heroism.

Conservatives will be responsible for the destruction of our nation. If you don’t believe that, you are ignorant beyond measure where history and politics are concerned.

Actually it is the left who will destroy this nation. They will tax us all into oblivion and run deficits up the wazoo until we fall and crumble in our own debt. Unions were once needed becuase there were little if no regulations and rules at work. No safety rules, little pay, long hours, etc. Now that the labor laws have changed the only thing that the unions do is collect money for the democrat party.

The fleebaggers are not heroes. They were elected to do a job and instead of doing that job and turned tail and ran like scared dogs. The whole concept of having a constitutional republic like ours is the fact that we put things to a vote. Now, when one party tries to block that vote, that is just not right. I realize that the republicans have doen the same thing as well and I stand by what I said. The republicans should not block votes either. That is cowardly of both sides.

I said right from the start that the legislature should vote with or without them. If they want to turn tail and run every time a tough issue comes up then they should change their line of work.

Unions are sucking up money from state budgets faster than a 2 dollar whore surrounded by horny millionaires. The best part about it is the fact that the very people who are bitching about it offers no solutions whatsoever.

The country is running out of moeny becuase we are spending significantly more than we are taking in. If you did this in your own personal life, you would probbaly be homeless, starving, and maybe even in jail. Why can’t you get that fact? We need to cut the entire budget by 25% minimum and leave it there indefinitely. There are entire programs we could just slice right off into oblivion. NPR, PBS, Planned Parenthood, etc are just three out of hundreds of people getting MY tax dollars that should not be getting one single red cent. They can raise their own money or rely on George Soros, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and othe nutty liberal tycoon billionaires to fund them. In other words if you liek them, then we can take YOUR money and fund then, but leave mine alone.

Ever since the hippy commies took over in the 150s and 1960s this nationa has gone downhill in every single aspect – morally, financally, militarily, and socially.

The fact is that left wing traitrs has torn this country apart in the name of “human rights” and “social justice” or the “environment”

I admit that civil rights is good and everyone should be treated with equally mutual respect and have the same opportunities as their neighbor. I understand human rights and the need to protect those right given by the CREATOR (not man). I understand that we need to keep pollution low and keep our word clean. All of these thungs are noble and decent things for the good of all man.

However, left wingers are very facist like when they wat to force thing down on everyone else. You force your curly light bulbs on us. Your force your flouride on us. Your force slow weak toilets on us. Your force ethanol on us. Your force “health”care on us.

Then comes the humans rights crap. Having food to eat, a decednt shelter, access to a basic education, and acess to basic medical care are indeed human rights. So is freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom to be a sovereign individual. However, owning a 64 inche plasma tv is NOT a human right. owning a cell phone is NOT a human right. Owning a mercedes is NOT a human right. You nutty people have your priorties very screwed up. Wealth redistribution is for traitors and losers and freaks and communists – something America is better than. This is a constitutional republic, not a fascist dictatorial socialist nanny state. Get over it.

The next thing we know the secular oppressives will be wanting a “state capitalism” (national socialism)system like red china. Thatworked out well in 1940s germany. I am anxious to see how it goes in China. Until then, the unions got busted. Free men won the debate. The state is better off becuase of it and so are the rest of us. That’s less money that coes out of MY personal paycheck to pay for something that will never benefit me one little bit. I would rather keep my money and spend it and invest it where I as a sovereign individual sees fit, not where you say i have to.

A little lesson on the difference between state capitalism (national socialism) and real capitalism:

North Korea and China are state capitalism (national socialism)
South Korea is real capitalism

Now tell me again which one works better? Tell me which one respects the sovereign indivudual and which one is just a dictatorial asshole? If we are not careful, we will become that dictatorship. The left is headed that way as we speak. The ecofreaks and social justice weirdos will drive us down a path hat will make nazi germany look like a child’s playground. I have already heard what the left thinks of population control, etc. They are dictator material. I say we need to turn the clock back to a pre woodrow wilson and FDR world. Those two fascist traitors ruined this nation. We went from being a sound free nation, to becoming an invalid welfare state with endless handouts and little repsect for the sovereign individual as the constuion was written for.

If the left were really interested in the government making more money, the “rich” putting in their ‘fair share” and all, they would ditch the income tax (which 55% of the population does not even pay) and IRS and goe to a national sales tax. The super rich who buy the most stuff would pay the most taxes. Then, the illegal aliens here would have to pay their sahre to live here illegally and everyone would be equal. 10% tax on everything for everyone. No matter if you made 1 dollar per week or 1 trillion dollars per week. Wheh you bought something the tax would be the same percentage amount for everyone. It would be more fair than our current system where the few have to hold up the many with their own money.

Eh, this isn’t the end of democracy. This is democracy in action: People voted in a strong Republican majority and this is what results. Not to worry though: I’m pretty sure between now and the next local Wisconsin election a lot of things will happen that will make this look tame.

(Incidentally, I really don’t see the loss of collective bargaining for government workers to be that big a deal. I’m more concerned with the general idiocy surrounding the notion that any of this would help with short-term budget claims.)

So Igor, you think that the left has taken over the country? You mean I missed the revolution?

So you’re telling me that now we have:o Public financing of elections, with a ban on corporate political adso A clampdown on runaway DoD spending, with overseas bases closed and the war in Afghanistan terminatedo Single-payer health careo Income and inheritance taxes as they were under Eisenhowero Massive investment in education instead of in weaponso The pernicious “corporations are persons” theory thrown into the wake of history, deservedly drowningo An economy where the bottom 50% of Americans own, oh, maybe 20% of the wealth, and a CEO makes 30 or 40 times what a worker does, instead of 350o Real First Amendment rights, where U.S. congressman don’t hold hearings demonizing your religion

How did I miss the headlines? Because if the left won, boyo, the country would look a lot different. Are you telling me that we’re not sufficiently in thrall to Wall Street and the General Dynamics and Boeings of the world? That what we really need is to roll over for them more, and it’ll all be better?

And, Greg: Headline fail, man. If you were down on the Square yesterday, you would see that this is SO not over. They passed the bill, sure. But the only way they could get it done was by flagrantly illegal tactics. Hell, they were locking the Capitol Wednesday night by putting flex-ties on the door handles; the State Troopers have formally asked the state to indemnify their officers for the possibly illegal acts they’ve been ordered to commit, and the Capitol Police basically washed their hands of locking people out of the Capitol. We’ve got the rats out into the light now, and the recall petitions and the polls are showing solid support even out in the rural areas. I’ll say this much for Governor Scooter: Nobody has energized and organized us this much since Nixon. First goalpost: April 5th state Supreme court elections. Next up: recalls!

I should mention, though, that none of this would have happened if the numbers and enthusiasm we see now was there in November. Can we make sure that next couple/few elections have outcomes that actually represent the state?

@Greg #14: Undo? No. Of course, you’re right, the votes in the Assembly and Senate have been taken, and wishing them away won’t magick them out of history.

But in all the decades I’ve been in Madison, I have never seen anything like this. Even the Vietnam War protests (wasn’t here, but my sister was) were as nothing in comparison — violent, confrontational, and in the end (mostly) counterproductive, to say nothing of the lives lost when those murdering idiots bombed Sterling Hall.

To be on the Square in the past three weeks is to see something genuinely new — it’s the same “we won’t take it anymore” frustration that drove the Tea Partiers, but this time its aim is better, and the numbers are staggering. I was having lunch with my wife on State Street yesterday when we noticed that the street was suddenly full, curb-to-curb, for blocks.

“Out-of-state agitators”? Union members?

No. It was hundreds and hundreds of high school students, marching up to the Square. And that was just the contingent from Madison West, East High came in from the other side!

Now, the iPod generation is famous for nothing if not its self-centered apathy. From what I’ve seen in the past three weeks, that is a complete canard, and that’s where my optimism comes from. Those kids are going to remember this. They were when history was made. Oh sure, some of them will bail, and many of them doubtless just thought this was more fun than classes. But if even one in a hundred stays engaged, we are already talking a serious movement here. Likewise the adults, this has galvanized them like nothing I’ve ever seen. Everybody I talked to on the Square ends their conversations with “And VOTE!” Going by my circle of friends, neighbors, and coworkers, I’d have to say they are directly involved and organized in get-out-the-vote efforts to a degree that’s strikingly novel, even for such a do-gooder bunch of volunteer-happy busybodies.

We have no illusions about what we’re up against, of course, in a post-Citizens-United world. And the commercials have been running nonstop. But a movement that can put 100,000 people in the street, nonviolently, and do it over an over, is the worst nightmare of the Karl Rove strategists of the world.

And so far, at least, it hasn’t been co-opted by any of the existing power structures, the way the Tea Partiers got so slickly folded into the GOP. Could still happen, of course, and it’s probably inevitable to some degree. (Certainly isn’t hurting the unions much!) Helps that, by and large, it’s an educated crowd.

I’m telling ya, this thing has legs. Amazingly, the bill’s passage didn’t drive people down, it re-energized them. I hate the tired use of war metaphor for every form of human endeavor, but Roosevelt’s words after Pearl Harbor keep coming back to me: “[They] have fired the first shot; we shall fire the last one.”

Woop, sorry, “life” lost. RIP Robert Fassnacht; at least your murder pulled the rug out from under the thugs advocating violence as a solution to society’s problems. Damn you, Armstrong brothers, for the decades of damage you did to our cause.

One more, and then I promise I’ll shut up and not feed the trolls any more.

Igor: So if North Korea is state capitalism, and South Korea is real capitalism…what does that make China? If they’re “real” capitalism, and of course “real” capitalism always engenders the freest societies possible…would you move there? I know I wouldn’t. But if they’re “state” capitalism, with its inevitable market failure, pray tell me: Why are they eating our economic lunch?

I HOPE THEY PASS THE SAME IN NEW JERSEY, WHY WE HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR BENEFITS? WHEN YOU GO TO A PUBLIC OFFICE AND THEY TREAT YOU LIKE 8&^&*** IF WE SUFFER THEY HAVE TO SUFFER TOO SINCE WE PAY THEIR F..SALARIES THATS THE TYPE OF GOVERNMENT WE NEED IN NEW JERSEY

About this blog

The science is mostly climate change, life science, evolution, and science education. The science policy and politics is mostly about climate change and the evolution-creationism false controversy. The technology is mostly about Linux, regular normal person computer use, kids programming, and now and then, household items.

As an Anthropologist and Africanist, I often write about those topics as well.

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